Shipping company sets sale

Latvia could earn up to 79 million euros ($75 million dollars) from a sale of 51 percent of shares in the Latvian Shipping Company later this month after officials on June 7 set rules for the auction.

The Latvian Privatization Agency set the price range for 102 million shares in the Latvian Shipping Company, or LASCO, to be auctioned on June 25 at 0.30 lats to 0.45 lats per share.

The price range "is economically founded and reflects the present situation of LASCO and the shipping industry in general," the agency's general director, Arnis Ozolnieks, was quoted as saying by the Baltic News Service.

If the auction to be held on the Riga Stock Exchange attracts enough foreign investors, the shares may be cross-listed in London in the form of global depository receipts.

After five years of wrangling over the company's future, a 32 percent stake was sold in April via privatization vouchers distributed to the public after Soviet rule came to an end.

The shipping company has a registered capital of 200 million lats and is one of Europe's largest carriers of oil and liquid gas products.